My favorite kinds of snobs are the SF snobs. I mean, if you are going to be a literature snob…at least pick a genre worthy of respect…
So - how do ***you ***feel about Cordwainer Smith?
What about the variation on that where it’s not snobbery and taste but expertise and opinion? In other words, the person who doesn’t believe that what they like is good and what they dislike is bad, but rather that what the experts in the field say is good is therefore objectively good, and vice versa. And that the only way anyone could possibly disagree with those experts is because the person is ignorant of what the experts know; anyone who is properly educated will agree with the experts.
All the movie critics – the expert ones, at least – agree that “Citizen Kane” is the best movie ever made. Therefore, it IS the best movie, independent of anyone’s taste in movies.
To me, this is the most insidious form of snobbery, because those afflicted with it can totally believe that there’s nothing about taste involved. I mean, it’s not just my opinion that “Citizen Kane” is the best movie ever made, it’s a fact, and the proof of its factualness is that the movie experts say so. Given that it’s a fact, if you disagree you must be ignorant of what makes it a fact. This is snobbery that the afflicted will never be able to acknowledged as such.
And it exists in all forms of art, movies and music included.
I’ve been accused by my coworkers of being a film snob several times because when I talk about films, I tend to say what I liked and didn’t like about them.
Apparently that counts as snobbery among some people.
You were not called a snob for expressing an opinion that Showgirls was a complex piece of art. You were called a snob because you expressed, pretty emphatically, that those who did not acknowledge its brilliance “didn’t get it”.
I think once the phrase “you just don’t get it” gets tossed, “snob” has a foothold to get in the door. I would define “snob” as someone who expects the casual consumer of a particular medium to have a breadth of knowledge or awareness far beyond a reasonable level of familiarity.
On the other side of it, “snob” is used as a defense once someone has used ridiculously obscure or seemingly trumped up arguments as a way to dismiss an opposing voice.
To me, a film snob would be one that dismisses a film without seeing it based on something like genre or a person in it or such.
For instance, someone may never go see action flicks, because all action flicks are stupid.
Or they may never want to see a subtitled film.
Or they may never want to see a Kevin Costner film.
Or they may never go see a horror film because they have dismissed all horror films as trash.
That’s a film snob.
If one of my friends went to see “Old Dogs” this weekend (or ever), I’d feel less about them and probably feel a little superior. But I do live in polite society, I’m not going to rip a person in front of their face for their bad taste. If anything I’ll change my habits of discussing movies with them, because obviously we have very little common ground and nobody will ever change the other’s mind.
About the power of critics. I tend to listen to the professionals. I assume they have a broader knowledge and experience than I and if many of them say, “Hey this movie is pretty good”, I’ll tend to watch, no matter the genre.
On the flip side, I will be excited to see a movie, but if all the critics pan it, I’ll probably wait for it on NetFlix or skip it all together. The theory being that 90 minutes or 180 minutes wasted on bad art is time I’ll never get back again.
I try not to express my snobbery except to my close friends. I try not to verbalize my art/media opinions at all because I find that my likes and experiences will fall on vacant stares if I try to encourage people to watch the same things I like.
I’ve had people make fun of me due to my love of the movie West Side Story, because they think it’s too dated, too “white-bread”, too stereotypical of white working class kids and Puerto Rican kids, and not gritty or realistic enough for their tastes. Tomany people who’re social workers, law-enforcement people, or who come from low to moderate income families and areas where there is gang violence, the film WSS hits too close to home. So, in a way, I think that the social workers are movie snobs. If that’s what being a movie snob is, then I must be a movie snob for preferring many of the older movies (i. e. from the 1960’s and 1970’s), for having more style, substance and a definite plot than many, if not most movies of today.
I think that the people who make fun of me for my preferences have issues, which they don’t want to admit to.
I’m also a music snob, due to my preference for much of the 1960’s golden-oldie rock-n-roll.
Heh, that’s like an anti-snob. A film Philistine.
I won’t watch movies from before the 1970s, and if it’s in the 70s or 80s I need the hard sell. Has to be an acclaimed masterpiece or I won’t bother, unless I saw it and remember liking it. (Like with Predator after reading that Predator thread this past fall.)
I’ll watch pretty much anything made after 1990, and I watch a crapload of movies. Counting only movies I see for the first time, I probably see around 500 a year on premium cable. Right now my DVR has nothing on it but 43 movies. Literally nothing but unedited and commercial-free feature films.
Am I a snob for disliking old movies? Seems the exact opposite of the mental image I have of what a film snob would be.
(Basically, if it was made without audible dialog or under the Hays Code, because of what I look for in a movie I will almost certainly think it’s a big steaming pile of dogshit.)